Blackboard has many features that can help you enrich your students’ learning experience and improve your teaching experience, but you may not know they are there. Whether the feature is difficult to locate or uses a name you do not recognize, the following list should help you find some little-known or brand new features in Blackboard!
Blackboard Ally can help you make your courses more accessible for all of your students in three important ways:
. Accessibility scores are visible as numerical numbers and colored gauges that represent the level of accessibility of your files.
Course accessibility reportscomplement accessibility indicators. The report summarizes your course accessibility with an overall score and makes it more convenient to address accessibility concerns. Both tools are only visible to instructors and teaching assistants (students cannot see accessibility score indicators or the report).
offers feedback on improving accessibility; it identifies accessibility issues, explains why they matter, and shows you how to fix them. When you click on the accessibility icon and select the accessibility score to open the instructor feedback panel, Ally will offer feedback and step-by-step support to help you correct accessibility issues.
A new feature that is being tested will provide you with real-time Ally accessibility feedback for content you create in the text editor! As you create content in the editor, you will see score updates automatically. Just as you would with an uploaded document, select the score to receive information on accessibility issues and step-by-step assistance to fix them. When you are done fixing accessibility issues, close the feedback panel and save your updated content in the editor.
Instead of uploading files from your device, you can upload files to your course directly from cloud storage (e.g., OneDrive, Google Drive). Keep in mind that you will probably need to log in the first time you add files from your cloud storage. You can add cloud storage files in both Original and Ultra View courses. Also keep in mind that adding files from cloud storage does take up space in your course and will count against your course quota.
An upcoming new feature release will allow anyone with the instructor, teaching assistant, or course builder role to link files directly from OneDrive within Blackboard, and the files will remain editable in OneDrive. Instead of uploading a new version of the file, you can make a change in OneDrive and students will have access to the newest version. Students, however, will not be able to edit the files.
[Until this feature is available, for large files, such as PowerPoints, you may want to add a link to the file from your cloud storage instead of uploading the file directly from cloud storage or from your device. Adding a share link for the file to your Ultra or Original View course will help you avoid using up your course quota because the file is stored in OneDrive or Google Drive, not in the Blackboard course. Keep in mind that you will need to adjust your sharing permissions for the file within OneDrive or Google Drive so that your students can access the file. You can allow anyone with the link to view the file but not edit by changing your file share settings.]
In both Ultra and Original View courses, you can record audio feedback for your students directly within Blackboard. In Ultra View courses, click the Add Content icon (plus sign) in the grading view for an assignment and select “Insert/Edit Recording.” In Original View courses, click the editor icon in the Feedback to Learner box. Then, select the Add Content icon (plus sign) and choose “Insert/Edit Recording.” Note that these recordings cannot be captioned, so be sure to provide written feedback instead for students who prefer or need text instead of audio/video.
You can annotate and grade student files submitted to Assignments directly within the browser with Bb Annotate in both Original and Ultra View courses. You can add highlights and comments in the margins or use freehand drawing tools and stamps to add content within your students’ submissions. Your preferences (e.g., colors or custom stamps) are saved across all of your courses.
You can also add frequently used comments to your Content Library. You can add, edit, delete, and search for comments in the library, and you can also add comments directly to the submission page from the menu. To add a new comment to the library, click the Content Library icon (three books) and then click the plus sign. Add keywords or phrases to your comment that will aid you in searching for saved comments in your library.
Progress tracking is now available for students in Ultra View courses. You can enable this feature to allow students to mark and track their progress in your courses. Students can click the progress tracking icon to manually mark content items complete after they have viewed them. Activities and assessments that students submit via Blackboard will automatically be marked complete.
In a future update, anyone with the instructor or teaching assistant role will be able to view which items students have accessed and marked complete.
Having trouble with the drag-and-drop feature to move content around in your course? Save yourself some frustration. Instead, you can move content with keyboard shortcuts in your Ultra View course.
With Kaltura, you and your students can upload, edit, publish, and share media. You can also create screen recordings, embedded video quizzes, and other interactive learning experiences. Kaltura is available directly in Blackboard under Tools > Kaltura My Media. The Blackboard integration with Kaltura allows instructors to build video-based content and provide a seamless learning experience for students. It also includes analytics, gradebook integration, and automatic closed captioning for accessibility (you can easily edit those captions, too, for more accurate results). Using Kaltura for video content has the additional benefit of enriching your course without affecting your Blackboard course quota.
You do not need to leave your course to find a YouTube video link. You can use the Insert YouTube Video option in an Ultra View course or add YouTube Video tool in an Original View course to browse and add YouTube videos directly in the content editor. You have the option to display the video as a link or to embed the video so it appears alongside the other content in your course. Keep in mind that not all videos you find on YouTube will have captions or may have inaccurate auto-captions. Fortunately, you can share YouTube videos through Kaltura for more accurate auto-captions, which you can also edit for further accuracy.
With Perusall, you can deliver reading and video assignment. You can adopt published books (which students purchase as eBooks for prices similar to what they would pay through the bookstore). You can also assign open education resources (OER) and add your own course materials, which students can access at no cost to them. When you create a reading assignment in Perusall, students can annotate readings and respond to one another’s comments and questions within the text asynchronously. Perusall offers automated, personalized guidance to student users to increase engagement. Additionally, courses with large numbers of students are automatically divided into smaller groups to make discussions more productive.
If you are interested in any of these options and have questions or want more information, feel free to contact our CITL team and we would be happy to help!
Few people realize that the classroom blackboard is one of the most revolutionary educational tools ever invented. And it may be hard to hard to fathom that blackboards as we know them today were unknown until relatively recent times.
The invention of the blackboard had an enormous impact on classroom efficiency. Due to their simplicity, effectiveness, economy and ease of use, the simple blackboard and its cousin the whiteboard have substantial advantages over any number of more-complex modern technologies. It’s unlikely they will ever become obsolete.
Blackboard classroom history begins, in rudimentary form, in ancient times. Students in ancient Babylonia and Sumeria inscribed their lessons on clay tablets with a stylus (predecessor to the pen and pencil) in cuneiform writing. These could be used wet and erased to be used again, or baked to create a permanent document. In India in the 11th century, teachers used something similar to personal blackboards in their lessons.
At the end of the 18th century, students in Europe and America were still using individual slates made of actual slate or pieces of wood coated with paint and grit and framed with wood. Paper and ink were expensive but slate and wood were plentiful and cheap, making them the economical option. Unfortunately, they were also highly inefficient. Teachers had no way to present a lesson or a problem to the class as a whole; instead they had to go to each individual student and write a problem or assignment on each one’s slate.
In 1801, the rather obvious solution to the problem made its debut. James Pillans, headmaster and geography teacher at the Old High School in Edinburgh, Scotland, is credited with inventing the first modern blackboard when he hung a large piece of slate on the classroom wall. In America, the first use of a wall-mounted blackboard occurred at West Point in the classroom of instructor George Baron.
Other schools rapidly adopted this new innovation. America’s fast-growing railroad system assured that by the middle of the 19th century, almost every classroom in America had a blackboard, mostly using slate shipped from quarries in Vermont, Maine, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Virginia. Businesses also started using them in their boardrooms.
Blackboard classroom history remained essentially the same until the 1960s with schools teachers using slate blackboards like their predecessors. Then the “greenboard” was introduced, which was a steel plate coated with a porcelain-based enamel. This was considered to be an improvement because chalk powder didn’t show as well when erased and the green color was considered to be more pleasing and easier on the eyes than black. It was also lighter and more durable than fragile slate, making it more economical and easier to ship.
The term “chalkboard” became more common when color of the board was no longer black. In the 1980s the whiteboard, or dry erase board, began to become common and by the mid-1990s 21% of American schools were using them.
Although chalkboards are still common in schools, especially in older schools, newer schools today tend to use the dry-erase board for its ease of use and because it eliminates chalk dust contamination in the classroom and avoids the need to have students clean erasers, a common chore in earlier days. Some critics, however, argue that the slickness of the whiteboard makes it harder for young students to use it when writing and that the slight resistance of the traditional blackboard is easier. The invention of dust-free chalk also makes blackboards more attractive to some.
Whatever its incarnation, it’s clear that the blackboard, because of its low-tech efficiency, will remain a staple of the classroom and the boardroom for the foreseeable future.